While I was lecturing at a new jersey college this spring semester, a student posed a question to me about what i had just presented...

the student posed an interesting question that i thought i would post here

The point / question he raised to me was as follows

" how can you say that "god" doesn't exist or that there isnt anything
"greater" or some kind of all knowing intelligent force"? doesnt the
concept of geometry in and of itself mean that there has to be a god? (I
knew what he was getting at but i asked him to explain because i wanted the student to articulate it for the class)

His point was, even if we assume that the big bang and
all of that did occurr... and that evolution did indeed occur etc etc,,
there still has to be some "force" that governs or is in control of the
natural laws of our universe.

for example, how can man explain a triangle? a triangle has intrinsic
properties of logic tied into it! (those being in particular the
pythagorean theorum) c squared = a squared + b squared... also other
gemetric properties of the triangle have no explanation.. how does man
explain that a right angle is 90 degrees and that no matter what every
triangle will always be 180 degress etc etc...

this argument is a good one, but is indeed fallible and flawed in my view and reasoning.....

just wanted to post this here to fuel discussion....

do u agree or disagree with this student who presented a seemingly
"rational" argument for the existence of an "intelligent" force?

Pff, yeah but shit like that triangles are always 180 doesn't mean that it has to be god "intelligent force" that created it. Triangles are figures we earths made up, you don't find it in nature right. Im not that much into it though.

this is a good "rational" type of argument for a god's existence.. ( i only entertain rational arguments)

but anyway, this argument is indeed flawed!

it is flawed because basically, the natural laws that we have within our universe are laws of a fixed logic (by fixed logic, i mean that as humans our worldview is always based upon assigning values to things)

that fixed logic being one that was "created" or "deduced from nature" by sentient beings.. those sentient beings of course being us.
Triangles and all of the principles of "triangular-ness" only exist because we are here to think them up and assign a value to them. (this goes for most of logic in addition). Our rules of logic (which of course is always tied into mathematics on a fundamental level) only exists because we exist.

mathematics is a human construct, therefore, to use his example, a right angle is DEFINED as 90 degrees. Mathematics is a language with which we can describe the Universe we live in. The triangle describes a set of similar objects, which we define to obey a certain set of rules. Thus, a right-angled triangle is defined to be an object which has three sides, obeys Pythagoras's Theorem and whose angles add up to 180 degrees. Thus, the argument fails.

mathematics is a human construct, therefore, to use his example, a right angle is DEFINED as 90 degrees. Mathematics is a language with which we can describe the Universe we live in. The triangle describes a set of similar objects, which we define to obey a certain set of rules. Thus, a right-angled triangle is defined to be an object which has three sides, obeys Pythagoras's Theorem and whose angles add up to 180 degrees. Thus, the argument fails.

Interesting thread, the question could be probed deeper, to include other interesting phenomena found in Math Theory (maybe circular trig and sound or light waves?). Some questions came up when I was thinking about this.

It is unclear to me what exactly you meant when writing about "fixed logic". Are you arguing that principles exist only because we exist? That our understanding is limited? Are principles "created" or "deduced"?

If a tool is used to reveal inherent properties, being the existence of relationships, do those relationships exist if never measured? Can you be mathematically accurate and not logical?

I agree that mathematics are a tool, of course, and it is intriguing that it happens to be the only language shared by all humans, used everywhere in practically every science, developed in seperate cultures, and even used by SETI (binary and prime).